Tesco ‘absolutely concerned’ about GDPR impact on Clubcard

Tesco ‘absolutely concerned’ about GDPR impact on Clubcard

The biggest shake-up to data laws is finally under way after the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on Friday (25 May). And the UK’s largest supermarket is worried about the impact it will have on how it uses Clubcard data.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Tesco’s chief customer officer Alessandra Bellini says only “time will tell” whether the new data laws will have a detrimental effect on what is undoubtedly one of Tesco’s greatest assets, given it holds more than two decades’ worth of customer data.

“I am absolutely concerned it will have an impact on Clubcard,” she says. “Everything that we do through both the CRM programme and the Clubcard programme is impacted.”

But “so far so good,” says Bellini, who has now been at Tesco for just over a year. Looking ahead, Bellini believes GDPR will give Tesco the opportunity to “be more relevant” and “earn trust” – something the supermarket has been desperately trying to do over the past few years following a number of instances that have put it in the national headlines for all the wrong reasons.

“Whether it’s your colleagues’ or your customers’ data, [if you demonstrate] that their privacy is very important to you then you earn the trust to do things with that data that is relevant for them,” Bellini says.